DOES COVER PRICE AFFECT SALES ?

My own BusinessWeek Thailand magazine is celebrating its second anniversary this month.
When we launched our monthly licensed Thai language edition in August 2007 we did so with a cover price of 175 baht. It was high, even now, for the Thai market but we felt it was justified because of the global brand image we were selling. At the time that was also the cover price of the weekly English edition.
This month we've dropped the cover price to 100 baht. We've also dropped the price of subscriptions.
Several months ago we undertook a promotion in a chain of bookstores, where a reduction in our cover price lead to a tripling of same store sales. That's enough proof to determine that yes, cover price does impact on sales.
The average price for monthly Thai language magazines is anything between 60 baht and 120 baht. There are a few higher. The locally produced English language magazines are in the 100-200 baht range. The imported English titles range from 135 baht upwards to more than 600 baht.
The problem with dropping prices in any industry is that it's extremely hard to get them back up, however we're confident the increase in sales and brand awareness will more than compensate.
The drawback is that it's likely to take until mid-October to know even preliminary sales figures for this month's edition. As a publisher it's very frustrating because it doesn't allow you to react quickly to any issues that may or may not need addressing.